THREE MARTINI LUNCH: JUNE 18, 214

Greg is joined by Eliana Johnson of National Review to discuss Obama's cratering poll numbers, IRS claims about more lost e-mails, and the U.S. patent office canceling the Washington Redskins' trademark.



The Internal Revenue Stasi's stunning and shameful record-keeping hypocrisy

More than 400 days ago, Lerner apologized for the actions of a few low-level employees in the Cincinnati office who had inappropriately put groups with conservative views under heightened scrutiny. The surprise apology turned out to be a strategy to pre-empt an Inspector General report that revealed more depth and breadth to the practice than Lerner first indicated. Subsequent testimony showed that senior IRS officials knew of the practice as early as 2011, even though Congress was repeatedly told that no such targeting had taken place.

Within days, the House Oversight Committee and Way and Means Committee began investigations into the scandal at the IRS, as did the Senate Finance Committee. The two committees, both with jurisdiction for legislative-branch checks on IRS activity, demanded testimony from Lerner and other IRS officials. On May 22, 2013, Lerner refused to testify. Her invocation of the Fifth Amendment resulted in a contempt charge against Lerner on which the Department of Justice has yet to act.

Both the House and Senate committees demanded Lerner's email records. A letter sent to acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller on May 20, 2013, from the chair and ranking member of the Finance Committee requested copies of "any and all questions, questionnaires, and information requests used by the IRS" to tax-exempt applicants, all documents "between any IRS employee and anyone else, including, but not limited to, individuals outside of the IRS" that related to the first set of documents, and especially "documents relating to communications between any and all IRS employees and any and all White House employees including, but not limited to, the president" that related to any targeting strategy. The House Ways and Means Committee subpoenaed the same records, and the IRS fought for months to keep them private.

In March, the IRS supposedly had a change of heart. They promised Ways and Means chair Dave Camp that his panel would receive the entirety of Lerner's email correspondence. One staffer on the committee offered up a bleak prediction at the time that there wouldn't be much left to search. "Whether that's because Lerner covered her tracks or because the IRS is shredding documents," the staffer told the Daily Mail's David Martosko, "we're probably never going to know."

Also read:

Paging Rose Mary Woods: Obama's Unbelievable Missing IRS Emails

Obama Is the New Dubya